The Culinary Farmer: Courtney Guerra, Alma, & Seed Change

In part two of our three-part series on the resurgence of urban farming in LA, we meet the professional-volleyball-player-turned-urban-farmer, Courtney Guerra, who has developed a new urban farming model melding community integration with culinary creation.

In case you missed the first installment of this series with LA artist Britt Browne, here are some quick facts to bring you up to speed. In the first half of the
20th century, Los Angeles County was the largest, highest producing
agricultural county in the United States—more bountiful than any county in Iowa
or Nebraska. Things have changed in the
last 60 years, but LA’s agricultural
roots haven’t entirely dried up. Individuals and communities across the sprawling metropolis are planting seeds that not only grow food, but regenerate the soil, clean the air, beautify neighborhoods, and inspire the city’s youth.

The Standard recently got in on the action by investing in Seed Change, a remarkable organization that supplies culinary-focused produce to lauded chef Ari Taymor of Alma at The Standard, Hollywood. As we learned by dropping in on Courtney Guerra, the culinary component is just one facet of Seed Change's larger mission.

At the top of a steep canyon in Glassell Park is a dead end
marked by a crooked sign nailed to a fence post. “HIDDEN CANYON" it says
in black paint, the hand-painted words faded by the sun, which by early June is
fiercely hot, baking the surrounding hillsides into sand-colored mounds.

There are houses dotting the canyons, the LA skyline in
the distance, and Maricopa Farms' neatly
planted rows of sunflowers and fava beans tucked into the plunging landscape below. Hidden Canyon
indeed.

This half-acre plot is the domain of Seed Change, a
non-profit organization focused on innovation and education around urban
agriculture in Los Angeles. “I see this as the future of LA,” co-founder
Courtney Guerra says of urban farming. “We have a lot of land here, but most of
it is covered in asphalt and buildings, so you have to find the potential in a
space that might not be so obvious.”

Guerra is tall, capable, and unfazed by the 100-degree heat—the
type of qualities you’d expect from someone who spent six years playing professional
beach volleyball. She began her post-athlete farming career at Meadowood in
Napa Valley, working in the garden that supplies the property’s three-Michelin
star restaurant while she earned a degree from the nearby Culinary Institute of
America. After culinary school, she moved to Los Angeles where she convinced a
friend in Venice to let her transform his front and back yards into a culinary
garden.

As the garden took shape, she met chef Ari Taymor, who along
with Ashleigh Parsons had just opened a restaurant in downtown Los Angeles
called Alma. They began an exclusive partnership: whatever Guerra grew, Alma
got.

Now, five years later, their partnership has evolved. In 2015,
Alma was forced to shutter its downtown digs, but re-emerged in 2016 at The Standard, Hollywood on
Sunset Boulevard. Guerra left Venice, took over Maricopa Farms, and began to rethink what a
sustainable urban farm in Los Angeles might look like.

“Urban farming is this tricky thing,” she says. “With
traditional farming, you’re working a lot of land—it’s a volume game. With
urban farming you have serious hurdles—namely space, rent, and the cost of
water, because you’re on residential water rates, not agricultural rates.”

She knew that the long-term health of Maricopa Farms
required partners, which she found in The Standard, which invested in the
program, and Alma Community Outreach, the restaurant’s non-profit arm, which
initiates student field trips to the farm and internship and volunteer
opportunities for youth interested in urban agriculture. The multi-pronged
approach allows Guerra to focus on what she does best: culinary farming.

What does culinary farming mean exactly? “Try this,” she
says, handing me a fava blossom. I crunch on the white flower, which is
remarkably sweet. A culinary garden, she explains, means you can be
hyper-focused on your harvest and utilize the plant at every stage.

Take caraway, for instance. Most cooks associate the plant
with seeds you buy in a supermarket or the dark brown freckles in your rye
bread. At Maricopa, Guerra grows fresh caraway, harvesting the frilly green
leaves and the blossoms for garnishes, and ultimately capturing the seeds,
which can be eaten fresh or dried, to create that dark brown seed you find in
the spice section.

For Taymor, having access to specialty crops gives him a
competitive advantage. The chef still has right of first refusal on all the
herbs, cucumbers, gherkins, Asian melons, and Mexican corn that Guerra grows at
Maricopa, but Seed Change can sell whatever Alma doesn’t purchase to local
markets and restaurants. Soon they will add bees and chickens to the property,
and potentially goats, as well.

Guerra is optimistic about the prospects of urban
agriculture in Los Angeles. For years, local advocacy groups have been lobbying
the City Council to make it easier to not only grow food on city property, but
also to turn urban agriculture into a viable business. Just days before my
visit to Maricopa Farms, the City Council passed the Urban Agriculture
Incentive Zone Program, which uses tax benefits to incentivize vacant lot
owners to partner with urban farmers in search of land. The measure not only
paves the way for better food access in urban areas, but also has the potential
to transform tens of thousands of vacant, and often blighted, lots into a
thriving green space.

“The great part is that we’re finally getting it,” Guerra
says. “Our policy makers are getting it. The Standard gets it. Now, it’s about
educating homeowners and vacant lot owners that this can be a real thing—you
can turn your property into an urban ag project, and that’s really exciting.”